Tag: Links

25 habits that will make you a writer by Shaunta Grimes — ignore the terribly clickbait-y title, the advice is actually pretty good. A lot of it may come off as pretty obvious (write every day), but I think it’s still worth a read, and includes some links to some other good books and resources. (Also, pretty relevant regardless of whether your chosen medium is writing or painting or sculpting, or any number of other creative outlets.)

Autumn of Indie Game Markets, Danc over at Lost Garden providing an insightful and frank look at the state of game markets right now. There’s an ebb and flow to markets like this, and the season metaphor he uses seems quite apt.

Last autumn, A List Apart had some posts discussing mental health. The Couch Cone of Silence is a good read discussing an important topic (namely, how to be respectful of friends and coworkers who are dealing with some mental/emotional issues).

I usually wipe out somewhere in phase 2 or rarely phase 3, which is why I like to say I can read/figure out a fair number of languages, but not write them. Next time I take a stab at learning to program, I’ll try to bear this info in mind.

Jon Jones has a really excellent write-up of how to set up a solid LinkedIn profile, and why you should. While the opening context is game industry related, 100% of the information he covers is relevant regardless of what career path you’re following. Well worth the read — also, check out the rest of his blog and tweets, there’s a ton of really solid information about resumes, portfolios, and getting into creative industries.

“In the medium term, online psychotherapy even yields better results. Our study is evidence that psychotherapeutic services on the internet are an effective supplement to therapeutic care.”

I’m both pleased and unsurprised by the findings, when you take into consideration some prior research that’s been done (thinking about some of the comments in the IRC Francais paper published back in 2002: I think it allowed us to get to know each other better. […] You learn about [the others] as people. We would talk about relationships and all kinds of things that you wouldn’t talk about in class.). It helps validate my feeling that online interaction and community serve very real, very valid roles, in ways that can be just as effective (or more) as in-person interaction. That’s not to say there aren’t issues that also need to be taken into account, but there IS value there.

Toxic Behavior in League of Legends: A nice summary of some of the research coming out of Riot Games about toxic behavior in gaming communities, over at Nelson’s Weblog. You should really go read it (and watch the talk it’s based on), but the quick takeaway is: most toxic behavior comes from people who are usually upstanding community members but end up having a “bad day.” As Andy Baio points out, the solution for toxicity in your community isn’t (always) banning, but rather having moderators and community managers available to intervene and check in on users when toxic behavior first starts manifesting. (This mirrors my own observations doing community management work — the people acting out are rarely bad people, and the more you can treat them like humans having a bad day, the more you can smooth out toxic behavior before it becomes overwhelming.)